Saturday, July 08, 2006

Infringement on a Plane?

Cobras in the Cockpit: based on a "fictional movie" (as opposed to an actual movie?), you play the snakes.

While the idea is so high concept as to be unprotectable by copyright, the creator has also hedged his bets -- there are snakes in the hedges -- by calling the game "a parody of all the snake movies you've ever seen, plus all the airplane movies you've ever seen." Ah yes, all those many snake-and-plane movies.

What about trademark infringement? Not scarily likely, since people would expect an official Snakes on a Plane game to be more like Snakes on a Plane. And probably have some sort of embedded chip that would include Samuel L. Jackson's voice. Dilution? Tougher question, unless resolved by calling this a noncommercial commercial use in commerce.

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